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I should probably preface this post by saying that everything written here is our own experience with this particular surgery. Don’t let anything that I say or any of the pictures I post be a deterrent for having this surgery.
This past Thursday, James had bilateral submandibular gland excision and parotid duct ligation surgery. In layman’s terms, he had surgery to remove some of his salivary glands. Because the salivary glands secrete saliva to help keep the mouth moist, the hope was that by removing some of them, it would reduce his secretions, which would result in less need for suctioning, and reduce the risk of aspiration pneumonia. James has been through quite a few surgeries in his short life, and I’d like to think that it gets easier, but it doesn’t. We always get a bit anxious and nervous whenever James has a procedure done.
The surgery was scheduled for 8:15 am and they wanted us to be at the hospital at 6:45 to get checked in and prepped for the surgery.
The surgery was supposed to be about two hours so after they wheeled him off to surgery (and Stacy started crying), they asked if we wanted to use one of their suites which would be more comfortable than sitting in the normal waiting room. “Yes, please!”
When the surgery was finished, the surgeon came out to talk to us and said everything went great. James did so well that he didn’t think there was any reason to keep him overnight. After a couple of hours in recovery, we were able to take him home.
Remember what I wrote in the first paragraph about not letting anything deter you from having this surgery? What I am about to show you is the reason why I wrote that.
Friday morning (the day after surgery) James woke up with the left side of his face a bit swollen. The surgeon had warned us that swelling after surgery was normal, so we weren’t too concerned. But by Friday night he looked like this:
Is that normal? He didn’t seem to be in any pain or discomfort and the doctor on call basically said that it was just part of the healing process and that it will get worse before it gets better. James sleeps on his belly to help drain secretions and the doctor said that would be okay, but he will probably be more swollen in the morning if he sleeps on his belly than if slept more upright.
We took the doctor’s advice and let James sleep upright in his Nap Nanny. Here is a comparison of Friday night vs. Saturday morning:
He was still quite a bit swollen, but it did look better. Sunday morning he looked so much better. He was still swollen (and cranky), but at least we could see his left eye again.
Yesterday (Tuesday) he looked almost back to normal:
So that was our experience with the bilateral submandibular gland excision and parotid duct ligation surgery. If you’re reading this because it’s something you are thinking about for your kid and came across this page through a Google search, I hope I didn’t scare you away from having the surgery. Everybody is different and yes, James’ swelling seemed a bit extreme, but it could just be the way that James reacted to the surgery. Your kid might not have that much swelling. I think it is still too early to tell how much of a reduction in secretions the surgery has had, but it doesn’t seem like we’re suctioning as much as we were. He has been a bit upset since the surgery and when he’s upset he tends to kick up more secretions. I’m anxious to see what his secretions are like after all the pain and discomfort are gone and he’s back to his normal self.
Update Saturday, July 23rd:
We really thought that everything was pretty much back to normal earlier this week, but we still had one concern. There was a hard, warm bump on his left cheek that had been there since the surgery and was still there after all of that swelling had gone down. We thought we should give it a couple more days to see if it was just the last thing to go away.
When it was still there this morning, Stacy put a call in to the doctor to see if we should be concerned. Because it was a Saturday, we got his answering service and left a message. He didn’t call us back, so we decided to take James to the ER to have someone look at him. The ER doc was able to get a hold of our ENT (who didn’t call us back) and he sincerely apologized…he didn’t get the message. From what it sounded like, it was just part of the healing process and to give James Motrin if we think he is uncomfortable.
Fingers crossed that the doctor is right, this bump is just part of the healing process, and that it goes away soon.
